Floppy is disabled both in the BIOS as well as via physical connections
(i.e. there is no floppy *physically connected* to the motherboard).
The Quantum Fireball (15 Gb) has a primary DOS/Windows partition, with
the rest of free space dedicated to linux ONLY. This is the Primary Master
with the TOSHIBA CD-ROM as the Primary Slave.
The LS-120 super disk "floppy" device is attached as the Secondary
Master drive.
I have made several downloads of the Fisher Disk1, with each download
correctly verified agains the md5sum. Three separate (Disk 1) CD's
created in Mandrake 7.2, with no errors.
Another attempt today, results in the same failure [4/5 th Feb. 2001]
respectfully,
Elton Woo.

Mille excuses! I should clarify that. The usb mouse detection is not related.
Sorry for the misunderstanding.
To begin with, when I had the lockups with the usb mouse, I attempted various
solutions:
disabled *all* IRQ's in the BIOS, disabled PS/2 (the keyboard still worked),
disabled video RAM shadowing, disabled PnP. Finally since RH kept insisting it
was a PS/2
mouse I attached the adapter plug that comes with the wheel mouse, and was able
to
proceed with the installation.
I opted for "epsert" mode, so that I could select the packages individually.
Once the install
routine completed and the machine rebooted, it was *then* the system complained
about
the fstab file not being found or created....
My next attempt was to do a simple basic install, choosing "Workstation". Again:
reboot.
and "no fstab". Of the 15Gb, I have only 2Gb dedicated to Windows98. The rest
of the
drive is Mandrake 7.2. Regardless of any bugs, I'm sufficiently confident in RH
linux, that
I intended to replace Mandrake with Fisher.
... but without fstab... I'm "fstuck"!! ;-))

I have now succeeded in installing the Fisher beta, so kindly consider this bug closed. Out of
*three* separate downloads and burns, it turns out that *two* burns of CD2 were defective.
... not enough to abort the install, but sufficiently corrupted to cause the "post-installation" failure.
First, I tried doing a basic install which would require *only* Disk1. Then a more selective install which
required the extra CD. This is the first time that I've had a problem with a "successfully created" CD.
...and what are the odds of *two* of *three* being defective (same Disk2).
... I regret any inconvenience this may have caused... Now I have my Epson USB scanner running
under Fisher (thanks to instructions from the redhat list) ... next, to configure the USB mouse, which
is still running as, and with the PS/2 connection.
with best wishes,
Elton Woo ;-)